Wednesday's Tech Winners & Losers

Tech stocks were mostly trading lower Wednesday as the sector reeled from a selloff in Apple shares, even as Wall Street grappled with fears of a severe economic slowdown.

Apple ( AAPL) plunged $16.57, 10.7%, to $139.07 on sluggish iPod sales and a disappointing forecast for the current quarter.

Apple posted a first-quarter profit of $1.58 billion, or $1.76 a share, compared with profit of $1 billion, or $1.14 a share, a year ago. Revenue for the quarter was $9.6 billion, compared with $7.1 billion a year ago. Analysts polled by Thomson Financial were expecting EPS of $1.62 a share on revenue of $9.46 billion.

For the second quarter, Apple guided for revenue of $6.8 billion and earnings of 94 cents a share. Analysts were expecting revenue of $6.98 billion and EPS of $1.09. The company said iPod sales grew 5% last quarter, compared with 50% in the year-ago quarter.

Motorola ( MOT) declined $2.34, or 19%, to $9.98 after it offered a weaker-than-expected guidance.

For the fourth quarter, Motorola reported adjusted profit of 14 cents a share, down from 26 cents a year ago, but a penny better than analysts' expectations of 13 cents.

Motorola said it expects earnings of about 6 cents a share, before items, in the first quarter. Analysts were looking for an adjusted profit of 10 cents.

Chip maker Texas Instruments ( TXN) bucked the trend as the stock rose $1.24, or around 4%, to $30.22, a day after it reported a 13% increase in its bottom line in the fourth quarter and guided slightly ahead of Wall Street expectations for the current quarter.

Intel ( INTC) and its rival AMD ( AMD) also fared well as investors favored the chip sector. Shares of Intel rose $1.35, or 7.3%, to $19.98, while AMD gained 74 cents, or 10.8%, to $7.57.

BlackBerry maker Research In Motion ( RIMM) declined $2.08, or 2.3%, to $88.00 on fears of that a slowdown in the economy could affect IT spending by businesses and consumer demand for the company's mobile phones.

Shares of Google ( GOOG) fell $35.73, or 6.1%, to $548.62, more than a week ahead of the company's earnings report, on the large selloff in the tech sector.

Marvell ( MRVL) was up 32 cents, or 3.2%, to $10.49 after the company said its chief financial officer, Michael Rashkin, resigned citing personal health reasons. Marvell named George A. de Urioste its interim CFO.